Xpera Group Blog

There was much buzz going on in Austin, Texas in late-March as Procore Inc. held its third annual Groundbreak construction conference at the downtown convention center and made its big reveal—Construction OS.

Since its founding in 2002, Procore’s mission has been to reduce the friction that every construction project faces. Over the years, the company has developed a powerful construction management platform that fosters open collaboration and gets the right information to the right people at the right time.

The latest Groundbreak conference was wildly successful, with over 2,300 registered guests, including Steve Grimes and Justin Cox attending on behalf of Xpera Group.

During the keynote address, the company revealed the latest evolution of its platform, called Construction OS. The company’s founder, Tooey Coutemanche, announced the upcoming release of Procore Sync, the latest Construction Financial tools and the roadmap to build tools for Preconstruction, Supply Chain Management and Payment Processing. The big goal for 2018 is to create a job-costing solution that can integrate with any Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution in the construction industry.

Other conference keynotes included major industry players in both construction and the technology, including: Steve Wozniak, co-founding engineer of Apple; Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs; and Tan Le, the founder of Emotiv.

However, most of the magic and excitement of the conference was on the expo floor and in the neighboring special section called the Innovation Labs, where attendees could speak directly with Procore developers, to give feedback and learn more about the new platform features in development. Many companies on the show floor were Procore App partners that provide services in data management, worksite tracking with mesh-net technology, building laser scanning for BIM modeling, and, of course, the hot technologies of drones and AR/VR.

Many of the conference talks were door-busters as well, with lines that stretched down the convention hallways. Some panels focused on the latest lessons learned in adapting cutting-edge construction technology, while others gave attendees the rundown on utilizing Construction OS’s latest financial and construction management tools. One notable talk was by the founder of Ekso Bionics about developing exoskeleton technology to increase productivity and reduce injuries caused by overexertion (such as holding a 30lb+ tool all day).

Xpera is excited to see the many improvements since we started using Procore’s construction management platform a few years ago and to see where the company is now headed. We have been in dialogue with a number of their developer teams, giving feedback to help them improve the tools that allow us to be of better service to our clients.

During the conference’s closing remarks, Procore announced that Groundbreak 2018 is slated for November back in Austin once again. Xpera plans to be there for what always promises to be a worthwhile event.